Basketball and Christmas

Ryan had a great December with his Saturday basketball. Coach Nate was AMAZING and his team was wonderful.

(Ryan's on the far left)

We were long over due for a Christmas in Reno at my parents. We opted for less stuff and more going and doing things the 6 of us. We did a TON. Snow shoeing to go see Lake Tahoe, skiing, LOBSTER, casino circus circus, bocce ball. Church concert and actual Christmas.

3 month update

Say what, no updates since October. Yikes.
Scrolling on my phone back to the middle of October hurt my eyes!
First halloween season at new school. Pictures is Connor with his first grade buddy (also Connor M) and Ryan with one of his best buds, Santhos.

In November I went with Connor on a 4th grade field trip then went to a "wreath making party" with Michelle. For Thanksgiving we had the Hagstroms and Mattsons over and had a turkey show down. They were actually all AMAZING but Hagstroms took home the grand prize.

Beginning of December Ryan had a "western expansion" day at school.

First week of December we had our 4th Annual White Elephant. Highlights include

• 20 couples attended
• Jello Shots provided by Blackfords
• Travis ended up with a kitty advent sock calendar
• Live music (how will we out do ourselves next year?)

This year the DAY AFTER white elephant Ray myself, the boys and the Konrads organized, boxed, wrapped and re organized presents for 622 kids to have a bright christmas. It was an awesome way to start the season. Having that mind set all season, I have to say we bought hardly ANY presents this year. When I woke up Christmas morning we were actually waiting for 1+ hours for the boys to wake up, so I was looking on Facebook and I was sick to my stomach of the excess under everyones trees. I didn't even have a clue how many presents are under so many trees.

Connor's 10th Birthday Party

For those of you that had children later in life, God bless you Ray and I are TIRED! Having Connor's 10th birthday party with 10 kids was easy and yet we are tired.
Our dog Boji is declining in life and so gets us up 1-3 times a night, we feel like we have a newborn again.

 Caden, Caleb, Connor, Aryan, Ben, Gavin, Kai, Henry, Ryan & Nora

Fall Break- Hawaii

We went to Kauai and it was AMAZING! None of the four of us had ever been to Hawaii. We loved the temperature (84-87 each day), the sand (100% smooth), the ocean (warm water), the animals (see pictures below) and spending time as a family relaxing and not cooking or cleaning.
Living the dream people! Just so I don't forget; we stayed on the south side of the island of Kauai at the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club.

We went to the botanical guards to watch the hula dancers. Ray and I could have stayed all day, Connor & Ryan were done watching the show after about 3 songs.

Ryan made a friend, Liam. Liam taught Ryan the skill of lizard catching

Every night at 5:30 we made sure to be outside to catch the sunset. Hawaii is 4 hours earlier than our time zone so it should be noted that we saw the sunrise each day too. 

Our last day we drove the 21 miles to the north side of the Island to Ha'ena State park and hiked the napali coast. 

All I wanted to see was a sea turtle. Day one, with in 10 minutes of getting to the hotel we found this guy! Made my whole trip!

Volunteers would post signs each day reminding people to stay back and give these amazing animals some space to rest on the beach. 

Everywhere we drove I was amazed, it looked like something out of a book or movie.

Had to break out our Hawaiian Shirts for a meal

Ha'ena State Park; our life guard was from Boulder CO

The main pool

My mermaid

My boys

Ha'ena

The sunset

sunset with my man

sunset, they were busy eating some'mores and were like, didn't you take our picture every other day when the sun was setting?

loved all the gardens, flowers and tress in this tropical paradise!